"What are you going to do?" Gu Qingheng pulled back Yang Ruxin.
"I’m going to see what’s inside that coffin." Yang Ruxin also took a medicine pill, "You wait here. My body is resistant to the scent, don’t argue, just wait for me here." Then she turned and entered the stone chamber.
Inside the sealed stone chamber, the fragrance grew even more intense.
At first, Yang Ruxin felt a bout of dizziness, but Xiaolun suddenly bit into her thenar and the slight sting made her instantly regain her focus.
She walked around the coffin, then took out a candle and lit it. When moving the coffin in the ancient tomb, hadn’t she read in books about "humans lighting candles but ghosts blowing them out"? Should she light a candle in the southeast or northeast corner, and if the candle goes out, whatever she sees inside, she mustn’t take away, but if the candle remains lit, she may take away anything she finds.
What to do when she couldn’t remember the position? And there wasn’t a compass or anything in this stone chamber to tell directions, so she couldn’t discern east, south, west, or north. So, she simply took out four candles and placed one in each corner.
"What’s Sister Ruxin doing?" Lin Xiwang asked curiously.
Gu Qingheng shook his head without speaking, just looked anxiously at the girl inside the stone chamber.
Lin Xiwang dared not speak anymore.
Yang Ruxin clasped her hands together in a prayer position towards the sarcophagus and then moved forward to push the lid of the coffin. However, she overestimated her own strength. Despite putting in all her effort, the coffin lid didn’t move at all, and so she turned to look at Gu Qingheng, "You have to help me."
Gu Qingheng nodded and flew straight in.
Yang Ruxin let Xiaolun wrap around his wrist, "Its poison can counteract the fragrance."
Gu Qingheng had to use his inner strength to finally push open the lid of the coffin.
Yang Ruxin exhaled deeply and only then did she walk up and look inside. Indeed, there were bodies inside, two of them, a man and a woman, likely a husband and wife buried together.
"Could this actually be Zhao Gou and his wife? Only, I don’t know whether it’s his first wife from the Xing Family or his second wife from the Wu Family," Yang Ruxin said excitedly as she looked at the people inside.
"According to records, Prince Gaozong’s original wife was taken away by the Jurchens and died outside. So, if this really is Prince Gaozong, then the person beside him could be from the Wu Family..." Gu Qingheng frowned slightly, after all, he had never seen Zhao Gou, so he wasn’t certain and could only say it was possible.
Yang Ruxin’s eyes widened. In the history of her previous life, after Xing, Zhao Gou’s first wife, was taken away by the Jurchens, she suffered a lot of hardships, especially after Zhao Gou proclaimed himself Emperor and founded the Southern Song, the Jurchens humiliated Emperor Gaozong even more by tormenting Xing. In the end, Xing died in Wuguocheng, never having lived in the central palace, and she was separated from Zhao Gou for more than a decade. Empress Wu, however, served as empress for half a century, experiencing four or five emperors. Yet in this timeline, she didn’t even manage to become the empress, but the outcome was still good—at least she was buried together with her man.
"Don’t they say that the dead often have jade or something in their mouths or hands?" Yang Ruxin felt a bit pity after a long look, "However, besides their prince and princess garments and jewelry, there’s not a single burial artifact in this coffin."
"This sarcophagus was opened before and moved here afterward." Gu Qingheng glanced around, "The scent was also applied to the sarcophagus later..."